^ On
an 11 April: 2002 As the
stock of Specialty Laboratories (SP) which had traded as high as $46 on
06 June 2001, drops from the previous close of $18 to an intraday low of
$10.25, closing at $11.75. This comes as the company announces
its disappointing first quarter 2002 results. [1-year price chart >]

2002 The Yugoslav Parliament passes a law
that removes legal obstacles for the arrest and extradition of those accused
of war crimes to the UN tribunal at the Hague. Hours later, one of them,
former Serbian interior minister Vlajko Stojiljkovic, shoots himself in
the temple, falls into a deep coma, and dies two days later. He leaves a
suicide note protesting the puppet regime's law directed against
patriots like him. Yugoslavia hopes to regain US aid and support
for loans from international organizations, which it lost by not meeting
the 31 March deadline set by the US Congress.

^2001 Police brutalizes Christians in Sudan.
On 26 April 2001, Amnesty International would
take note of the Sudanese presidential decree pardoning 47 persons arrested
over the recent Easter and called for an impartial and independent investigation
into the shootings, beatings and arrests by the Sudanese riot police on
11 April 2001. "Amnesty International is concerned that at least nine
people, including children, were flogged as punishment, after being convicted
with 47 others for causing 'public disturbance' in an unfair and summary
trial." On 11 April, Christians gathered at All Saints Cathedral in Khartoum
for prayers and to discuss the cancellation of a religious rally organized
by church authorities on 10 April. Some students, angry at the cancellation,
reportedly went outside the church with stones. When the riot police intervened,
those outside the church ran inside. According to witnesses, police threw
teargas inside the church making it difficult for people to breathe, and
fired bullets at the crowd injuring many. Police then entered the church
and indiscriminately arrested at least 56 people. One person, Edward Jemi,
lost a hand from bullet wounds. At least two others were hit by bullets.
It is reported that some, including women, were beaten and that one person
was stabbed by the riot police. The 56 people arrested were brought the
next day to a criminal court and charged with causing public disturbance.The
judge refused to allow their lawyer to defend them. The trial lasted less
than an hour. Six women and three children were sentenced to 15 and 20 lashes
respectively and were flogged on 12 April and then released. The remaining
47 were sentenced to 20 lashes each and from seven to 20 days in prison.
Other people present in the cathedral,
including Church officials and a journalist, Alfred Taban, were also arrested.
They were later released, apart from Alfred Taban, who was held incommunicado
without charge until he was released on 17 April without explanation. "The
government should conduct an impartial and independent investigation into
the incident", Amnesty International said."And those responsible for unlawful
shootings should be brought promptly to justice. All people detained by
the police should be given the opportunity of fair trial including being
defended by a lawyer of their choice." The human rights organization further
urged the Sudanese government to take immediate action to ensure that its
security forces comply with international standards, especially the UN Basic
Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials,
thereby protecting the life and safety of civilians. The organization is
also calling on the Sudanese authorities to refrain from inflicting torture
such as flogging as punishment, especially for children. The Sudanese authorities
should guarantee the right to free assembly and freedom of religious belief
and practice.Background:
Church authorities in Khartoum had planned events for Easter and had invited
a German evangelist to address a rally on 10 April in Green Square in central
Khartoum, which they had booked. After threats by Islamic groups to disrupt
the celebrations, the Sudanese authorities ordered the church authorities
on 09 April to move the event to Haj Yusif in the outskirts of Khartoum.
Because of the short notice, people turned up on 10 April in Green Square.
Clashes ensued with the police. It is alleged that the police threw tear
gas and shot at people. At least 50 people were arrested and later released.
Clashes were also reported on the same day in Haj Yusif. Following these
incidents, the church authorities decided to cancel the event and were discussing
their decision with the Christian community the day after in All Saints
Cathedral, when they were disrupted by the police. The use of excessive
force by the Sudanese security forces has been reported several times in
the past, as well as complaints by the Christian community of harassment
and restriction of their right to freedom of religion.

1996 Time Warner and CompuServe announce a partnership
giving CompuServe users exclusive access to a portion of Time Warner's Pathfinder
site.

^1997 Lucent Technologies and Bell Atlantic reconcile.
Less than a month after settling a
$3.5 million antitrust lawsuit, Lucent Technologies agreed to sell
Bell Atlantic $1 billion worth of telecommunications equipment over
five years. Bell Atlantic had sued Lucent in February for making its
switches incompatible with other manufacturers' equipment, which limited
Bell Atlantic's ability to buy from other suppliers. Although terms
of the settlement were not disclosed, the five-year, $1 billion contract
seemed to indicate they had come to satisfactory terms.

1994 Software piracy
crackdown News
media report that students at two New England colleges had been arrested
for allegedly distributing pirated software through the Internet.
An MIT student reportedly used university computers to establish an
Internet bulletin board where users could copy pirated software. The
second student, from Brown University, was also arrested in a similar
but unrelated case involving a computer bulletin board. During the
mid-1990's, software makers started to pressure the government to
crack down on software pirates, who cost companies billions of dollars
a year in revenues.

1991 Persian Gulf War
ends. United Nations
Security Council Resolution 687, calling for an official cease-fire
in Iraq, was declared in effect by the Security Council five days
after Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein reluctantly accepted its terms.
On 02 August 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait, its tiny, oil-rich neighbor,
and within hours Iraqi forces had occupied most strategic positions
in the country. One week later, Operation Shield, the American defense
of Saudi Arabia, began as US forces raced to the Persian Gulf. On
29 November, 1990, the UN Security Council passed a resolution
authorizing the use of force against Iraq if it failed to withdraw
from Kuwait by 15 January 1991. At 16:30 Eastern Standard Time
on 16 January 1991, Operation Desert Storm, a massive US -led
offensive against Iraq, began as the first fighter aircraft were launched
from Saudi Arabia and off of US and British aircraft carriers in the
Persian Gulf. All evening, aircraft from the US -led military coalition
pounded targets in and around Baghdad as the world watched the events
transpire on television footage transmitted live via satellite from
Baghdad and elsewhere. Operation Desert Storm was conducted by an
international coalition under the command of US General Norman Schwarzkopf
and featured forces from thirty-two nations, including Britain, Egypt,
France, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait. Over the next six weeks, the allied
force engaged in a massive air war against Iraq's military and civil
infrastructure, encountering little effective resistance from the
Iraqi air force. Iraqi ground forces were also helpless during this
stage of the war, and Saddam Hussein's only significant retaliatory
measure was the launching of SCUD missile attacks against Israel and
Saudi Arabia. Saddam hoped that the missile attacks would provoke
Israel, and thus other Arab nations, to enter the conflict; however,
at the request of the US , Israel remained out of the war. On 24 February,
a massive coalition ground offensive began and Iraq's outdated and
poorly supplied armed forces were rapidly overwhelmed. By the end
of the day, the Iraqi army had effectively folded, ten thousand of
its troops were held as prisoners, and a US air base had been established
deep inside Iraq. After less than four days, Kuwait was liberated
and the majority of Iraq's armed forces had either been destroyed,
surrendered, or retreated to Iraq. On 28 February, US President
George Bush declared a cease-fire, and on 03 April, the UN Security
Council passed Resolution 687, specifying conditions for a formal
end to the conflict. According to the resolution, Bush's cease-fire
would become official, some sanctions would be lifted, but the ban
on Iraqi oil sales would continue until Iraq destroyed its weapons
of mass destruction under UN supervision. On 06 April, Iraq accepted
the resolution, and on 11 April, the Security Council declared
it in effect; although in later years Saddam Hussein frequently violated
the terms of the peace agreement. One hundred and twenty-five American
soldiers were killed in the Persian Gulf War, with another twenty-one
reported as missing in action.

1979
Idi Amin overthrown ^top^
In Uganda, Tanzanian troops and forces of
the Uganda National Liberation Front captured the capital of Kampala, driving
Ugandan dictator Idi Amin into a permanent exile. In 1971, Major General
Idi Amin, commander-in-chief of Uganda's armed forces since 1966, staged
a successful military coup against Ugandan President Milton Obote.
Amin's regime initially faced substantial
opposition within the army by officers and troops loyal to Obote, but by
the end of 1971, he was in firm control of both the army and the country.
During 1972, Amin, a Muslim, strengthened ties with Libya and other Arab
nations and launched a genocidal program to purge Uganda of its Lango and
Acholi ethnic groups.
In August of 1972, he ordered all Asians
to leave the country, and within three months all sixty thousand had fled,
thrusting Uganda into economic chaos. Over the next few years, Amin's regime
became increasingly brutal and autocratic; he dismissed his civilian government,
declared himself president for life, and stepped up his suppression of various
ethnic groups and political opponents in the military and elsewhere.
In 1978, Amin invaded Tanzania in an attempt
to annex the Kagera region, but in the next year, Tanzania launched a successful
counter-offensive with the assistance of the Uganda National Liberation
Front, a coalition of various anti-Amin groups. Amin and his government
fled the country on April 11, 1979, and Obote returned from exile to reassume
the Ugandan presidency. It is estimated that up to three hundred thousand
Ugandans were killed during Idi Amin's eight years of rule. Amin found sanctuary
in Saudi Arabia.

1972 B-52s strike North
Vietnamese positions^top^
B-52 strikes against communist forces
attacking South Vietnamese positions in the Central Highlands near
Kontum remove any immediate threat to that city. Air strikes against
North Vietnam continued, but were hampered by poor weather. Also on
this day, the Pentagon ordered two more squadrons of B-52s to Thailand.
These actions were part of the US response to the ongoing North Vietnamese
Nguyen Hue Offensive, which had begun on March 30. This offensive,
later more commonly known as the "Easter Offensive," was a massive
invasion by North Vietnamese forces designed to strike the blow that
would win the war for the communists. The attacking force included
14 infantry divisions and 26 separate regiments, with more than 120'000
soldiers and approximately 1200 tanks and other armored vehicles.
The main North Vietnamese objectives, in addition to Quang Tri in
the north, were Kontum in the Central Highlands, and An Loc farther
to the south. The fighting, which continued into the fall, was some
of the most desperate of the war. The South Vietnamese prevailed against
the invaders with the help of US advisors and massive American airpower.

1970 Apollo 13 departs
for the Moon^top^
Apollo 13, the third manned lunar landing
mission, was successfully launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying
astronauts James A. Lovell, John L. Swigert, and Fred W. Haise.
Two days later, on 13 April, disaster
struck 300'000 km from earth when liquid oxygen tank No. 2 exploded,
disabling the normal supply of oxygen, electricity, light, and water.
A moment later Swigert reported to mission control: "Houston, we've
had a problem," and minutes later the lunar landing was aborted. The
crippled spacecraft continued to the moon, circled it, and began a
long, cold journey back to earth.
The astronauts and mission control were faced with enormous logistical
problems in stabilizing the spacecraft and its oxygen supply, and
providing enough energy to the damaged fuel cells to allow successful
re-entry into the earth's atmosphere.
On 17 April, with the world anxiously watching, tragedy turned
to triumph as the Apollo 13 astronauts touched down safely in the
Pacific Ocean. Apollo 13, the
third lunar landing mission, is successfully launched from Cape Canaveral,
Florida, carrying astronauts James A. Lovell, John L. Swigert, and
Fred W. Haise. The spacecraft's destination was the Fra Mauro highlands
of the moon, where the astronauts were to explore the Imbrium Basin
and conduct geological experiments. After an oxygen tank exploded
on the evening of 13 April, however, the new mission objective
became to get the Apollo 13 crew home alive.
At 21:00 EST on 13 April, Apollo 13 was over 300'000 km from
Earth. The crew had just completed a television broadcast and was
inspecting Aquarius, the Landing Module (LM). The next day, Apollo
13 was to enter the moon's orbit, and soon after, Lovell and Haise
would become the fifth and sixth men to walk on the moon. At 21:08,
these plans were shattered when an explosion rocked the spacecraft.
Oxygen tank No. 2 had blown up, disabling the normal supply of oxygen,
electricity, light, and water. Lovell reported to mission control:
"Houston, we've had a problem here," and the crew scrambled to find
out what had happened. Several minutes later, Lovell looked out of
the left-hand window and saw that the spacecraft was venting a gas,
which turned out to be the Command Module's (CM) oxygen. The landing
mission was aborted. As the
CM lost pressure, its fuel cells also died, and one hour after the
explosion mission control instructed the crew to move to the LM, which
had sufficient oxygen, and use it as a lifeboat. The CM was shut down
but would have to be brought back on-line for Earth reentry. The LM
was designed to ferry astronauts from the orbiting CM to the moon's
surface and back again; its power supply was meant to support two
people for 45 hours. If the crew of Apollo 13 were to make it back
to Earth alive, the LM would have to support three men for at least
90 hours and successfully navigate more than 200,000 miles of space.
The crew and mission control faced a formidable task.
To complete its long journey, the LM needed energy and cooling water.
Both were to be conserved at the cost of the crew, who went on one-fifth
water rations and would later endure cabin temperatures that hovered
a few degrees above freezing. Removal of carbon dioxide was also a
problem, because the square lithium hydroxide canisters from the CM
were not compatible with the round openings in the LM environmental
system. Mission control built an impromptu adapter out of materials
known to be onboard, and the crew successfully copied their model.
Navigation was also a major problem.
The LM lacked a sophisticated navigational system, and the astronauts
and mission control had to work out by hand the changes in propulsion
and direction needed to take the spacecraft home. On 14 April,
Apollo 13 swung around the moon. Swigert and Haise took pictures,
and Lovell talked with mission control about the most difficult maneuver,
a five-minute engine burn that would give the LM enough speed to return
home before its energy ran out. Two hours after rounding the far side
of the moon, the crew, using the sun as an alignment point, fired
the LM's small descent engine. The procedure was a success; Apollo
13 was on its way home. For
the next three days, Lovell, Haise, and Swigert huddled in the freezing
lunar module. Haise developed a case of the flu. Mission control spent
this time frantically trying to develop a procedure that would allow
the astronauts to restart the CM for reentry. On 17 April, a
last-minute navigational correction was made, this time using Earth
as an alignment guide. Then the repressurized CM was successfully
powered up after its long, cold sleep. The heavily damaged service
module was shed, and one hour before re-entry the LM was disengaged
from the CM. Just before 13:00, the spacecraft reentered Earth's atmosphere.
Mission control feared that the CM's heat shields were damaged in
the accident, but after four minutes of radio silence Apollo 13's
parachutes were spotted, and the astronauts splashed down safely into
the Pacific Ocean.

1968 US President Johnson signs 1968 Civil Rights Act.1967 Harlem (NYC) voters defy Congress & reelect Adam Clayton
Powell Jr 1963 John XXIII encyclical On peace
in truth, justice, charity and liberty1963
One hundred US soldiers of the Hawaiian-based 25th Infantry Division are
ordered to temporary duty with military units in South Vietnam to serve
as machine gunners aboard Army H-21 helicopters. This was the first commitment
of American combat troops to the war and represented a quiet escalation
of the US commitment to the war in Vietnam. 1961
Israel begins the Adolf Eichman world war II crimes trial 1960
first weather satellite launched (Tiros 1)

1951 Truman dismisses
MacArthur ^top^
President Harry S. Truman removed General
Douglas MacArthur from his post as commander of UN forces in Korea,
and ordered the general home. The dismissal followed MacArthur's public
disclosure of Truman's refusal to allow him to bomb Chinese bases
in Manchuria. MacArthur, the
son of a top-ranking army general, was commissioned as a lieutenant
in 1903, and during World War I, served as a commander of the famed
Eighty-Fourth Infantry Brigade. During the 1920s, he was stationed
primarily in the Philippines, a US commonwealth, and in the first
half of the 1930s, served as US army chief of staff. In 1935, with
Japanese expansion underway in the Pacific, President Franklin D.
Roosevelt appointed MacArthur military adviser to the government of
the Philippines. In 1941, five months before Japan bombed Pearl Harbor,
he was named commander of all US armed forces in the Pacific.
After the American entrance into the
war, he conducted the defense of the Philippines against great odds.
On March of 1942, with Japanese victory imminent, Roosevelt ordered
MacArthur to Australia but the American general promised the Philippines
 his adopted home  that "I shall return." Five months
later, the great US counter-offensive against Japan began, and on
20 October 1944, after advancing island by island across the
Pacific, MacArthur waded ashore onto the Philippines. Eleven months
later, he officiated the Japanese surrender and after the war served
as effective ruler of Japan during a highly productive five-year occupation.
After North Korea invaded South
Korea on 25 June 1950, MacArthur was appointed supreme commander
of the US -led UN force sent to aid the South. In September, the UN
force successfully landed at Inchon, and by October, North Korean
forces had been driven back across the Thirty-Eighth Parallel. With
President Truman's approval, UN forces crossed into North Korea and
advanced all the way to the Yalu River  the border between North
Korea and Communist China  despite warnings that this would
provoke Chinese intervention.
When China did intervene, forcing UN forces into a desperate retreat,
MacArthur pressed for permission to bomb Chinese bridges and bases
across the border. President Truman, fearing the Cold War implications
of an expanded war in the Far East, refused. MacArthur made the dispute
public, leading Truman to fire him on 11 April 1951. However,
MacArthur was given a hero's welcome upon returning to America, and
on 19 April, he addressed a joint meeting of Congress, declaring
"Old heroes never die, they just fade away." After unsuccessfully
running for the Republican nomination in 1952, MacArthur faded from
the public view. And he eventually did die.
In perhaps the most famous civilian-military confrontation in the
history of the United States, President Harry S. Truman relieves General
Douglas MacArthur of command of the US forces in Korea. The firing
of MacArthur set off a brief uproar among the American public, but
Truman remained committed to keeping the conflict in Korea a "limited
war." Problems with the flamboyant and egotistical General MacArthur
had been brewing for months. In the early days of the war in Korea
(which began in June 1950), the general had devised some brilliant
strategies and military maneuvers that helped save South Korea from
falling to the invading forces of communist North Korea. As US and
United Nations forces turned the tide of battle in Korea, MacArthur
argued for a policy of pushing into North Korea to completely defeat
the communist forces. Truman went along with this plan, but worried
that the communist government of the People's Republic of China might
take the invasion as a hostile act and intervene in the conflict.
In October 1950, MacArthur met with Truman and assured him that the
chances of a Chinese intervention were slim. Then, in November and
December 1950, hundreds of thousands of Chinese troops crossed into
North Korea and flung themselves against the American lines, driving
the US troops back into South Korea. MacArthur then asked for permission
to bomb communist China and use Nationalist Chinese forces from Taiwan
against the People's Republic of China. Truman flatly refused these
requests and a very public argument began to develop between the two
men. In April 1951, President Truman fired MacArthur and replaced
him with Gen. Matthew Ridgeway.
On 11 April, Truman addressed the nation and explained his actions.
He began by defending his overall policy in Korea, declaring, "It
is right for us to be in Korea." He excoriated the "communists in
the Kremlin [who] are engaged in a monstrous conspiracy to stamp out
freedom all over the world." Nevertheless, he explained, it "would
be wrong-tragically wrong-for us to take the initiative in extending
the war. ...Our aim is to avoid the spread of the conflict." The president
continued, "I believe that we must try to limit the war to Korea for
these vital reasons: To make sure that the precious lives of our fighting
men are not wasted; to see that the security of our country and the
free world is not needlessly jeopardized; and to prevent a third world
war." General MacArthur had been fired "so that there would be no
doubt or confusion as to the real purpose and aim of our policy."
MacArthur returned to the United States to a hero's welcome. Parades
were held in his honor, and he was asked to speak before Congress
(where, on 19 April 1951, he gave his famous "Old soldiers never die,
they just fade away" speech). Public opinion was strongly against
Truman's actions, but the president stuck to his decision without
regret or apology. Eventually, MacArthur did "just fade away," and
the American people began to understand that his policies and recommendations
might have led to a massively expanded war in Asia. Though the concept
of a "limited war," as opposed to the traditional American policy
of unconditional victory, was new and initially unsettling to many
Americans, the idea came to define the US Cold War military strategy.

1945
The US army liberates Buchenwald concentration
camp. ^top^
The American Third Army liberates the Buchenwald
concentration camp, near Weimar, Germany, a camp that will be judged second
only to Auschwitz in the horrors it imposed on its prisoners. [photo
16 Apr 46 >]
As American forces closed in on the Nazi
concentration camp at Buchenwald, Gestapo headquarters at Weimar telephoned
the camp administration to announce that it was sending explosives to
blow up any evidence of the camp  including its inmates. What the
Gestapo did not know was that the camp administrators had already fled
in fear of the Allies. A prisoner answered the phone and informed headquarters
that explosives would not be needed, as the camp had already been blown
up, which, of course, was not true.
The camp held thousands of prisoners, mostly slave laborers. There were
no gas chambers, but hundreds, sometimes thousands, died monthly from
disease, malnutrition, beatings, and executions. Doctors performed medical
experiments on inmates, testing the effects of viral infections and vaccines.
Among the camp's most gruesome characters was Ilse Koch, wife of the camp
commandant, who was infamous for her sadism. She often beat prisoners
with a riding crop, and collected lampshades, book covers, and gloves
made from the skin of camp victims. Among those saved by the US troops
was Elie Wiesel, 16, [< may have looked like one of the kids
at left] who would go on to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986

"Buchenwald, the first concentration camp to be breached by
the western Allies, had been built high on the hills above Weimar, capital
of the defunct democratic Republic and not far from an imperial Schloss
known as Wilhelmshohe. Nearby still
stood the Goethe Oak, a noble tree to which the eighteenth-century
giant of German letters had often repaired to refresh his perspective.
Approximately 238'000 prisoners, many of
them Jews, but also non-Jewish Poles, Russians, and dissident Germans, had
been incarcerated in Buchenwald since its dedication. Even before the war
exploded in Europe, it was serving the coercive purposes of the Nazis.
Already in mid-November 1938, after a Nazi
Embassy official had been assassinated by a distraught young Jew, more than
10'000 people had been sent to the camp, where they were compelled to pass
their arrival night in the open winter air and then were beaten and tortured.
A loudspeaker kept repeating the announcement that any Jew who wished to
hang himself should put a paper with his number in his mouth so that his
identity could be quickly established.
Throughout the war years the deportation trains and convoys moved in meticulously
maintained schedules out of Buchenwald to the death camps further east.
But even in this temporary detention camp, some 56'000 had died or been
murdered. When the forward platoons
of Americans arrived on the morning of 11 April 1945 only about 20'000
prisoners remained. Hermann Pister, the last SS commandant, was working
frenetically to ship out as many as he could process. In the previous week
he had secretly selected forty-six of the last inmates for public execution
on the home ground of Buchenwald itself. His intention was relayed to the
prison underground that had been organized in the last weeks of the camp's
existence. When the time came for the roll call, not one of the forty-six
answered. Camp personnel, aware that the Americans were already on the outskirts
of Weimar, and their thoughts now mainly on escape, made a halfhearted unsuccessful
search for the inmates, then drifted away.
Indeed, some panic-stricken guards who were left behind at this point begged
prisoners for good references. Others were confiscating prisoners'
garb in the hope they might escape recognition in the chaos soon to come.
However, few cheated retribution. Survivors with barely enough strength
to walk disarmed them at the gates; only days before, even to approach a
Nazi guard was to be shot down summarily. As a sign of welcome to the liberators,
prisoners began to hang out scraps of cloth that had once been white.

Some of the first Americans to enter the camp
vomited as their eyes beheld what their minds could not absorb  bodies
stacked in obscene anonymity [photo], the barely living whimpering
among the corpses, bunks full of shaven-headed, emaciated creatures who
had wizened into skeletal apparitions. American soldiers put on film the
scenes in rooms full of naked, unburied corpses, piled ten feet high.
Soon after the takeover, General Dwight Eisenhower,
commander of the Allied Forces in Europe, arrived. "I have never felt
able to describe my emotional reaction when I came face to face with indisputable
evidence of Nazi brutality and ruthless disregard of every shred of human
decency," he wrote. "Up to that moment I had only known about
it generally, or through secondary sources. I am certain, however, that
I have never at any time experienced an equal sense of shock. // http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/camps/buchenwald/buchenwald-01.html

1941 The Desert
Fox reconquers Libya^top^
German Lieutenant General Erwin Rommel,
the Desert Fox, completes the recapture of Libya by the
Axis forces, which he started 9 days earlier as he resumed his advance
into Cyrenaica, modern-day Libya.
Early Italian successes in East Africa, which included occupying parts
of Sudan, Kenya, and British Somaliland, were soon reversed after
British offensives, led by British Field Marshall Archibald Wavell,
resulted in heavy Italian casualties and forced the Italians to retreat
into Libya. But Axis control
of the area was salvaged by the appearance of Rommel and the Afrika
Korps, sent to East Africa by the German High Command to bail their
Italian ally out. On the verge of capturing Tripoli, the Libyan capital,
Britain's forces were suddenly depleted when British Prime Minister
Winston Churchill transferred British troops to Greece.
Seizing the opportunity of a weakened British force, Rommel struck
quickly, despite orders to remain still for two months. With 50 tanks
and two fresh Italian divisions, Rommel forced the British to begin
a retreat into Egypt. Operation Battleaxe, the counteroffensive by
British Field Marshall Archibald Wavell, resulted in little more than
the loss of large numbers of British tanks to German 88mm anti-tank
guns, as well as Wavell's ultimately being transferred from North
Africa to India. Rommel, known
for his trademark goggles, which he pilfered from a British general's
command vehicle, may have had some help in defeating his British counterpart.
He was known to carry with him a book called Generals and Generalship,
written by Archibald Wavell. Rommel was portrayed by James Mason in
the 1953 film The Desert Rats and by Christopher Plummer
in 1967's Night of the Generals. Wavell was portrayed by
Patrick Magee in the 1981 TV movie Churchill and the Generals.

1931 Dorothy Parker
resigns as drama critic for The New Yorker^top^
The witty and caustic Dorothy Parker resigns her job as drama critic
for The New Yorker. However, she continues to write book
reviews until 1933, which are published in 1971 as A Month of
Saturdays. The funny, sophisticated Parker symbolized the Roaring
Twenties in New York for many readers.
Parker was born in New Jersey and lost her mother as an infant. Shortly
after she finished high school, her father died, and she struck out
on her own for New York, where she took a job writing captions for
fashion photos for Vogue for $10 a week. She supplemented
her income by playing piano at nights at a dancing school. In 1917,
she was transferred to the stylish Vanity Fair, where she became close
friends with Robert Benchley, the managing editor, and Robert Sherwood,
the drama critic. The three became the core of the famous Algonquin
Round Table, an ad hoc group of newspaper and magazine writers, playwrights,
and performers who lunched regularly at the Algonquin Hotel and tried
to outshine each other in brilliant conversation and witty wisecracks.
Parker, known as the quickest tongue among them, became the frequent
subject of gossip columns as a prototypical young New Yorker enjoying
the freedom of the 1920s. Parker
lost her job at Vanity Fair in 1919 because her reviews were
too harsh. She began writing reviews for The New Yorker,
as well as publishing her own work. Her 1926 poetry collection, Enough
Rope, became a bestseller, and her short story collection Big
Blonde won the prestigious O. Henry Award. Despite her carefree
reputation, Parker was cynical and depressed, and tried to kill herself
twice. In 1933, she married actor Alan Campbell, moved to Hollywood,
and became a screenwriter. Parker collaborated on more than 20 screenplays,
including A Star Is Born (1937) and its remake in 1954. She
and Campbell divorced in 1947 but remarried in 1950. The outspoken
Parker embraced radical politics, taking a stand against fascism and
supporting communism. Although she never joined the Communist Party,
she and Campbell were blacklisted from Hollywood during the McCarthy-era
House Un-American Activities Committee hearings and never worked in
film again. Parker died in 1967.

1921 Turkestan ASSR established in Russian SFSR 1900 the US
Navy acquires its first
submarine, a 16-meter craft designed by Irish immigrant John P. Holland.
Propelled by gasoline while on the surface and by electricity when submerged,
the Holland served as a blueprint for modern submarine design. By the eve
of World War I, Holland and Holland-inspired vessels were a part of large
naval fleets throughout the world. 1899 Treaty
of Paris ratified, ending the Spanish-American War; Spain cedes Puerto Rico
to US. 1898 President McKinley asks for Spanish-American
War declaration.

1870 British Lord
kidnapped in Greece.^top^
While visiting Marathon, Greece, Lord
Muncaster of Britain is kidnapped by brigands, almost resulting in
war. The pirates, led by Takos Arvanitakis, were experienced in kidnapping
and had used it as a lucrative source of income for many years. However,
their capture of Lord Muncaster and a group of English tourists proved
to be more difficult to pull off than they anticipated. Arvanitakis
and his gang demanded £50'000 for the release of the captives. King
George of Greece refused their ransom demands, offering instead to
exchange himself for the hostages in an attempt to appease England.
However, before any further negotiations could take place, a confrontation
between the brigands and Greek troops resulted in the death of just
about everyone involved, including Muncaster. Arvanitakis was one
of the few who managed to escape the battle with his life. The incident
caused England to threaten war, but Russia interjected by siding with
Greece. The crisis was averted after Greece conducted a major crackdown
on the bandits. Although few of the people they arrested had actually
played any role in the kidnapping, it eased the international tensions
and greatly reduced the number of subsequent kidnappings in the country.
Arvanitakis was shot and killed two years later.

1803 Talleyrand offers
to sell Louisiana^top^
In one of the great surprises in diplomatic
history, French Foreign Minister Charles Maurice de Talleyrand makes
an offer to sell all of Louisiana Territory to the United States.
Talleyrand was no fool. As the foreign minister to French Emperor
Napoléon Bonaparte, he was one of the most powerful men in
the world. Three years earlier, Talleyrand had convinced Napoléon
that he could create a new French Empire in North America. The French
had long had a tenuous claim to the vast area west of the Mississippi
River known as Louisiana Territory. In 1800, Napoléon secretly
signed a treaty with Spain that officially gave France full control
of the territory. Then he began to prepare France's mighty army to
occupy New Orleans and bolster French dominion. When President Thomas
Jefferson learned of Napoléon's plans in 1802, he was understandably
alarmed. Jefferson had long hoped the US would expand westward beyond
the Mississippi, but the young American republic was in no position
militarily to challenge France for the territory. Jefferson hoped
that his minister in France, Robert Livingston, might at least be
able to negotiate an agreement whereby Napoléon would give
the US control of New Orleans, the gateway to the Mississippi River.
At first, the situation looked
bleak because Livingston's initial attempts at reaching a diplomatic
agreement failed. In early 1803, Jefferson sent his young Virginia
friend James Monroe to Paris to assist Livingston. Fortunately for
the US , by that time Napoléon's situation in Europe had changed
for the worse. War between France and Great Britain was imminent and
Napoléon could no longer spare the military resources needed
to secure control of Louisiana Territory. Realizing that the powerful
British navy would probably take the territory by force, Napoléon
reasoned it would be better to sell Louisiana to the Americans than
have it fall into the hands of his enemy. After months of having fruitlessly
negotiated over the fate of New Orleans, Livingston again met with
Talleyrand on this day in 1803. To Livingston's immense surprise,
this time the cagey French minister coolly asked, "What will you give
for the whole?" He meant not the whole of New Orleans, but the whole
of Louisiana Territory. Quickly recognizing that this was an offer
of potentially immense significance for the US , Livingston and Monroe
began to discuss France's proposed cost for the territory. Several
weeks later, on 30 April 1803, the American emissaries signed
a treaty with France for a purchase of the vast territory for $11'250'000.
A little more than two weeks later, Great Britain declared war on
France. With the sale of the Louisiana Territory, Napoléon
abandoned his dreams of a North American empire, but he also achieved
a goal that he thought more important. "The sale [of Louisiana] assures
forever the power of the United States," Napoléon later wrote,
"and I have given England a rival who, sooner or later, will humble
her pride."

2008
Manuel Ramirez [28 May 1917–], parishioner of Our Lady of
the Assumption, El Paso, Texas, homebound handicapped, as were two of his
three sisters with whom he was living piously. —(080414).2004
Anna Grudziecke [17 Mar 1998–] [photo >],
of Houston, Texas, first in the world to be implanted a DeBakey child heart
pump (on 26 March 2004). Her heart muscle had thickened, causing it to stiffen
and deteriorate. The device supplements the pumping of the left ventricle,
the main pumping chamber of the heart. More than 200 adults have been implanted
with the adult version. Some have survived for more than a year. —(080412)2003 Lorenzo Enrique Copello Castillo, Barbaro Leodán Sevilla
García, and Jorge Luis Martínez Isaac, by firing
squad, at dawn in Cuba. On 08 April 2003 they had been sentenced to death,
at the same time as four other men were sentenced to life in prison, and
one man and three women to 30 years to 2 years in prison, because, early
on 02 April 2003, armed with knives and one pistol, they had hijacked the
ferry Baragua in Havana Bay and headed for the US with about 50
hostages on board. But the ferry soon ran out of fuel. Officers on the two
Cuban Coast Guard patrol boats that chased them persuaded the hijackers
to let the ferry be towed the 50 km back to the port of Mariel for refueling.
But instead, once there, the ferry was stormed by Cuban troops and the hijackers
arrested. None of the hostages was hurt. The executions come in a week in
which Castro's dictatorship has sentenced 75 dissidents to 28 to 6 years
in prison on charges of collaborating with US diplomats to undermine Castro’s
regime.2003 Two Iraqi children, by US tank firing
at the minibus in which they were, which had blackened windows and “seemed
like it was not going to stop” a checkpoint near Nasiriyah, Iraq,
manned by US Marines of the 15th US Marine Expeditionary Unit, fearful of
a suicide bomb attack. The nine adults in the vehicle are wounded.2003
Thomas Hurndall, 21, British, after being shot in the head by machine-gun
fire from an Israeli tank, as he tried to get two Palestinian children out
of danger during a peaceful demonstration of a dozen members (of which he
was one) of the International Solidarity Movement, on the outskirts of the
Rafah refugee camp, Gaza Strip.2002 Seventeen demonstrators
against Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, as his supporters shoot
down from the Carmelitas Bridge and some tall buildings at a mass demonstration
in Caracas.
2002: 21 persons, mostly foreign tourists, by terrorist bomb which
destroys part of a synagogue on the resort island Djerba, Tunisia.2002
Anna Yakobovitch, 78, Israeli from Holon, of injuries received
on 27 March 2003 in suicide bombing at the Park Hotel in Netanya, Israel,
which caused 23 immediate deaths, and 7 delayed deaths, including hers.2002 Some 50 persons because of fire aboard ferryMV
Maria Carmela, about 20 km from its destination in Lucena, Philippines,
at about 07:00. Some of the victims drowned when jumping overboard without
a life jacket. The Montenegro Shipping Lines ship had left Masbate island
some 12 hours earlier, with a crew of 47 and 243 passergers listed on the
manifest. It was capable of carrying 326 passengers plus vehicles. 86 persons
are injured. The fire had started in the cargo hold.[images below::
left: the ferry still smoldering hours later  right: the burned-out
hulk after being towed to shore]

2001 Khabib Sanginov,
49, Deputy Interior Minister of Tajikistan, his driver, and two bodyguards,
murdered.^top^
He was a top Tajik police official and
opposition representative in the nation's coalition government. He
is killed in a daylight machine-gun attack on his car. Three gunmen
in sweatsuits sprayed the car with gunfire from AK-47 rifles as he
rode through a suburb of Dushanbe, at about 08:00. The men then ran
off. Sanginov, who was hit several times, died at the scene. His driver
and two bodyguards also died.
Sanginov had headed a campaign against organized crime. Sanginov,
a former rebel sympathizer during the 1992-97 civil war, entered government
as part of a 30% quota for opposition members under a peace deal brokered
by the United Nations to end the conflict. He had held the post of
deputy interior minister since 1999 and served on the country's National
Reconciliation Commission. After
the breakup of the Soviet Union, Tajikistan descended into civil war
between a Russian-backed secular government and the mostly Islamic
opposition. The war ended when opposition leaders such as Sanginov
agreed to stop fighting in return for participation in the government.
The peace deal didn't end Tajikistan's lawlessness, however. The head
of the National Reconciliation Commission, Otakhon Latifi was shot
in his front yard in 1999. A deputy director of Tajikistan's main
security agency, Shamsulo Dzhobirov, was blown up in a car bomb in
February 2000. Government troops still clash occasionally with a small
group that rejected the peace deal and with Islamic fighters based
in neighboring Afghanistan. Contributing to the violence, wealthy
and well armed gangs smuggle heroin from Afghanistan across Tajikistan
to markets in Russia and Western Europe.

2000 Jeff Azuar, 50,
policeman, shot. He
is shot by Joe Teitgen, 34, on whom, at about 14:30, Azuar and another
officer were serving an arrest warrant on weapons and grand theft
charges at Teitgen's house near the corner of Tennessee and Mariposa
streets, in Vallejo, California. Teitgen's wife, who was home with
one of the couple's three children, a 3-year-old, opened the door
to the officers, who found Teitgen trying to hide in the garage. A
struggle ensued, during which Teitgen shot Azuar in the head with
a handgun. A third officer shot Teitgen, who suffered a punctured
lung.

^1999 Earl Faison, allegedly
of asthma, after being beaten and pepper sprayed by police, while
handcuffed. In the
City of Orange, Essex County, NJ., police officers Lt. Thomas Smith,
36, of Caldwell; his brother Brian Smith, 30, of Orange; Tyrone Payton,
34, of Orange; Paul Carpinteri Jr., 36, of Orange; and Andrew Garth,
31, of Bloomfield, think that Earl Faison, 27, of East Orange, an
aspiring rap artist, resembles a police artist's sketch of a cop killer.
They arrest him, douse him with pepper spray, and beat him severely
while in their custody. Faison dies within an hour of being stopped
by the police. Faison had nothing to do with the murder
of a policewoman. On
08 April, officer Joyce Carnegie was working solo in the patrol division
of the City of Orange.. A report of multiple armed robberies was transmitted
on the south side of Orange. Officer Carnegie responded to an area
of her sector that would serve as a likely escape route. Just before
21:00, near Rah-Rah's go-go bar at South Day Street and Freeway Drive
West, near Route 280, she observed an individual fitting the description
of the suspect. As she exits her vehicle the man produced a Tec 9
and fires at her, striking her in the abdomen and subsequently firing
another fatal round to her head. A Drug Enforcement Administration
agent, who happens to go by, notices the police car with its lights
on and no officer. He gets out of his car and sees the officer down.He
rushes her to the shock-trauma unit at the University of Medicine
and Dentistry of New Jersey-University Hospital in Newark, where she
dies at 21:25. A multi agency
manhunt was launched.State refuses to prosecute the
killer cops.
Feds can charge them only with civil rights violation, so they are
let off lightly. On
19 December 2000, a federal jury convicted the five Orange police
officers. The verdict came on the second day of deliberations after
a six-week trial. The suspect, Earl Faison, died in police custody
less than an hour after being arrested on 11 April 1999. The
officers were charged with violating his civil rights, not with causing
his death, which medical experts attributed to an asthma attack. Prosecutors
maintained the attack was exacerbated by pepper spray that was shot
directly into Faison’s face. Police Blame Victim Defense lawyers,
however, said the attack was brought on by Faison’s flight from and
violent struggle with the arresting officer, who was not charged.
They also say there is no physical evidence of pepper spray being
administered to him. A federal indictment was handed up in June against
Lt. Thomas Smith, 37, of Caldwell, who retired last year; Officers
Paul Carpinteri Jr., 36, of Orange; Andrew Garth, 31, of Bloomfield;
Tyrone Payton, 34, of Orange; and Brian Smith, 30, of Orange. The
Smiths are brothers. The active officers have been suspended without
pay. All have been free on bond. All were convicted of one count of
conspiring to deprive Faison of his civil rights by striking Faison
after he was handcuffed or trying to conceal the assault. Roll Call
of Convictions All but Carpinteri also faced a single charge of depriving
Faison of his civil rights: Payton was acquitted of kicking Faison
while the suspect was lying handcuffed on the sidewalk. Thomas Smith
and Andrew Garth were convicted of hitting Faison when the handcuffed
man was lying in the back of a police car. Brian Smith was convicted
of shooting pepper spray at close range into Faison’s face while the
handcuffed man was lying in a police station stairwell. Each count
carries up to 10 years in prison and a $250'000 fine.Dropped
Charges, Lingering Scars
Before summations began the previous week, US District Judge John
C. Lifland dropped several charges. He ruled that Payton and Carpinteri
did not aid others in violating Faison’s rights when they tossed him
in the back of a police car because they did not know others would
then allegedly beat Faison in the car. Each had faced one count of
depriving civil rights on that. Lifland also ruled that Payton, the
only black officer on trial, did not menace Faison with a gun at the
Orange police station, because Faison was already unconscious and
so could not feel threatened. Assistant US Attorney Patty Shwartz
had told the jury that Payton, who was close to Joyce Carnegie, pointed
his service handgun at Faison’s head, and said, “Why did you have
to do it? Why did you have to kill her?”
Faison was one of four black men detained in the Carnegie’s death
in the days following her shooting. The shoddy investigation into
her death brought additional criticism of already embattled Essex
County Prosecutor Patricia A. Hurt, who was later removed.
Condell Woodson, 25, a career criminal, later confessed to the crime
and plea-bargained a life sentence without possibility of parole.
Federal authorities had no basis for
a murder charge in Faison’s death because the death did not take place
on federal property. The state attorney general’s office said its
investigation concluded there was insufficient evidence of homicide.

^1996 Jessica Dubroff, 7, Lloyd Dubroff,
57, Joe Reid, 52,
Jessica, her father, and flight instructor die when the plane she
is piloting crashes after takeoff from Cheyenne, Wyoming. Jessica had hoped
to become the youngest person to fly cross-country..

Jessica Dubroff's single- engine plane was overloaded with luggage and personal
items when it crashed in treacherous conditions. As people around the country
struggled to understand how parents could allow a small child to undertake
a coast-to-coast flight, Jessica's mother defended the decision, saying
her daughter was fulfilling what America stands for. The small
aircraft was overweight with personal effects when it crashed
in Cheyenne, Wyoming, during a rainstorm in the morning. The crash killed
the Pescadero girl, her father, Lloyd Dubroff, 57, of San Mateo, and flight
instructor Reid, 52, of Half Moon Bay. At Cheyenne's high elevation, taking
off with a heavy load was more difficult than when Jessica set off from
Half Moon Bay, trying to become the youngest person to complete the 11'000-km
journey from coast to coast and back. In addition, it was likely the Cessna
Cardinal 177B encountered wind shear. The pilot of an airplane that took
off minutes before Jessica's plane told controllers he had encountered the
perilous flying condition

Two days before Jessica took off, her mother, Lisa Blair Hathaway, was asked
if the weather might delay her flight east. The weather will move
for her. It is not luck. Jessica knows that. It is the power of her being.
There is something about Jessica that things move for her. She is just a
wonderful person. That expression of serene confidence in a 7-year-old's
abilities seemed to be at the core of Jessica's parents' attitude toward
their children. Even before she was born, Jessica was treated as special,
destined for a life of accomplishment and independence. Jessica and her
brother Joshua, now 9, were born underwater in a five-foot-square birthing
tub without doctors or midwives. Hathaway, 41, describes herself as a a
spiritual adviser working with the medical profession. Her youngest
child is Jasmine, 3. Even after the crash, she continued to maintain that
children should be encouraged to have such adventures. I beg people
to let children fly if they want to fly, she said. A teary-eyed Hathaway
said, Clearly I would want all my children to die in a state of joy.
I mean, what more could I ask for? I would prefer it was not at age 7 but,
God, she went with her joy and her passion, and her life was in her hands.
Jessica was home-schooled because her
parents wanted her to learn from life's experiences. She shunned children's
books and television, and was encouraged to take charge of her own education.
The children were taught how to build furniture. At age 4, Jessica was already
learning about economics with her first job  a paper route. Most recently,
her physical education came from horseback riding lessons that a local stable
gave her in exchange for caring for the animals. The children ate organic
foods from health food stores and from the garden at their home. Jessica
took her first flight in a small aircraft when she was 6 years old. That
was followed by her first lesson, in November 1995. Before her fatal last
flight, both Hathaway and Jessica's father described their daughter as a
highly focused little girl  fearless and determined. We don't
use an emotional- thinking language, so we don't use the words `scared,'
`fear,' `sadness,' `happy,' Hathaway had said. I'm not nervous
in any way, because Jessica is a great aviator. I see it in her body and
soul, and there is no way I would ruin that for her by being nervous.
The family moved to California from
Massachusetts about 1993. Jessica's parents never married and separated
as a couple soon after arriving in the state. Dubroff, a management consultant
who lived in San Mateo, subsequently remarried. But Lisa and Lloyd agreed
on basic ideas of raising Jessica, and both supported letting her fly across
the country in an airplane. About a year ago, Hathaway and her children
moved into a house on Pescadero's quiet North Road and then across the street
to a tan house a few weeks ago. When they moved in, Jessica introduced herself
to neighbors, who said they were charmed by her intelligence and curiosity.
She was wonderful, said Chris Dutsch, who runs a wood- carving
and sign-making shop next door to the family's home. Jessica often visited
and asked what various tools were for and how she could help. Jessica often
rewarded Dutsch for his friendliness by bringing him cookies and cakes.
A few days ago, she presented him with one of the hats her father had printed
in honor of her adventure. He proudly stood outside their home and wore
the hat as he talked about a very special girl with a big heart.
`THESE KIDS WERE LEARNING' I thought what their mother was doing was
rather advanced, Dutsch said. These kids were learning. They
went to cultural events, they took music lessons. They had a lot going on.
Jessica's father's words before takeoff
stood as a reminder that adventure and danger go hand in hand. Jessica
didn't set out to change the world, she just set out to do something she
thought was cool, Lloyd Dubroff said. I figure Jessica will
do more for civil aviation (than anyone) since Amelia Earhart.

The people who decide who and what gets in the news are thinking out loud
about whether 7-year-old Jessica Dubroff belonged there. Under fire from
critics, editors and news directors have tried to determine whether their
coverage of Jessica's attempted cross-country flight and others like it
encourages youngsters to try unsafe feats in the hope of gaining publicity.
There are those who say the deaths of Jessica, her father and her flight
instructor are tragic proof of the need for media self-restraint. Mark Young,
publisher of the Guinness Book of World Records' US edition, said the record
book decided seven years ago to stop listing dangerous feats performed by
youngsters after concluding that “encouraging young pilots to fly would
eventually result in an accident like this.” The National Aeronautic Association,
which had kept track of such records, reached the same conclusion, he said.
But coverage by the news media keeps such records alive, Young noted. “These
things receive so much publicity from news media that people are always
saying, ‘My child could do that, too.’ ”

When Jessica, her father, and her flight instructor took off from Half Moon
Bay on their cross-country adventure, with the 4-foot-2 Jessica at the plane's
controls, the public was charmed by the notion of a child setting a transcontinental
aviation record. It was noted in passing that the Guinness Book of World
Records has stopped recognizing the youngest pilot category
for fear of encouraging unsafe flights, and the Federal Aviation Administration
will not license a pilot younger than 16. But Lloyd Dubroff explained why
he allowed Jessica to make the daring, 11'000-km round-trip flight at her
age: Because my daughter requested it. And because I thought she was
capable of it and because I thought it was safe. In the wake of the
crash, those words ring with a tragic irony. Now the cruel but stubborn
questions are about adult judgment and parental responsibility.

1987 Erskine Caldwell, 83, novelist (Tobacco Road)1987 Primo Levi, Italy, chemist/writer (Survival in Aushchwitz)1974 Abraham
Robinson, Jewish-German-born US mathematician born on 06 October
1918. Author of Complete theories (1956), Non-Standard Analysis
(1966). Robinson invented non-standard analysis, which gives an alternative
model for the Real numbers (sometimes called hyperreals) in which infinitesimals
(numbers > 0 but < 1/n for all n) can be interpreted in a different
way. 1974 All 18 residents of an apartment building
in Kiryat Shmona, Israel, killed by three members of the Popular Front for
the Liberation of Palestine who had crossed into Israeli from Lebanon. The
dead include 9 children. 1965: 272 die as 40 tornadoes strike
US midwest. Some 5000 are injured.

1942 The victims of
the 2nd day of the Bataan Death March ^top^ The
day before, one day after the surrender of the main Philippine island
of Luzon to the Japanese, the seventy-five thousand American and Filipino
troops captured on the Bataan Peninsula had begun a forced march to
a prison camp near Cabanatuan. During this infamous trek, known as
the "Bataan Death March," the prisoners are forced to march 140 km
in six days with only one meal of rice during the entire journey.
By the end of the march, which was punctuated with atrocities by the
Japanese guards, over five thousand Americans and many more Filipinos
died. The day after Japan bombed
the US naval base at Pearl Harbor, the Japanese invasion of the Philippines
began. Within a month, the Japanese had captured Manila, the capital
of the Philippines, and the US and Filipino defenders of Luzon were
forced to retreat to the Bataan Peninsula. For the next three months,
the combined US -Filipino army, under the command of US General Jonathan
Wainwright, held out impressively despite a lack of naval and air
support. Finally, on 07 April,
with his army crippled by starvation and disease, Wainwright began
withdrawing as many troops as possible to the island fortress of Corregidor
in Manila Bay. However, two days later, seventy-five thousand Allied
troops were trapped by the Japanese and forced to surrender.
The next day, 19420410, the Bataan
Death March began, resulting in the deaths of over a third of the
prisoners. Of those who survived to reach the Japanese prison camp
near Cabanatuan, few lived to celebrate US General Douglas MacArthur's
liberation of the Philippines in early 1945.
In the Philippines, homage is paid to the victims of the Bataan Death
March every April on Bataan Day, a national holiday that sees large
groups of Filipinos solemnly rewalking parts of the death route.

1907
Christian
Gustav Adolph Mayer, German mathematician born on 15 February
1839. He worked on differential equations, the calculus of variations and
mechanics. 1906 James A. Bailey, 58, circus showman
(Barnum and Bailey)1894 Raphaël Ritz, Swiss
artist born on 17 January 1829.1881 Some 80 die
as river ferry Princess Victoria sinks in Thames River, Ontario.
1875 Samuel Heinrich Schwabe, born on 25 October
1789, amateur astronomer, of Dessau, Germany, who discovered that sunspots
vary in number in a cycle of about 10 years. He announced his findings in
1843, after 17 years of almost daily observations. Schwabe also made (1831)
the first known detailed drawing of the Great Red Spot on Jupiter. [click
image for 25 Feb 1979 photo by Voyager 1 >]1844
Arnoldus Bloemers, Dutch artist born in 1792 or 1786. 1836
Augustin van den Berghe, Belgian artist born on 13 October 1756.

1794Marin JacquesBOUTILLIER
DE SAINT-ANDRÉ, 47 ans, guillotiné à Nantes,
conformément au jugement rendu le
jour précédent.1793 BERDIER Jacques, et
BERDIER Pierre, domiciliés à Seisses-Tolosanes, canton de Muret,
département de Haute-Garonne, condamnés à mort comme séditieux,
par le tribunal criminel du département de Haute-Garonne.1793
DECOURS Jacques, domicilié à Castillonés, département du Lot et
Garonne, condamné à mort comme émigré, par le tribunal criminel
du département de la Dordogne.1760 Louis Silvestre,
French artist born on 23 June 1675.1734 Thomas
Fantet de Lagny, French mathematician born on 07 November 1660.
He calculated p (pi) to 120 decimal places. [See
Pi
through the ages, A
chronology of pi, and Dowload pi] 1626 Marino
Ghetaldi, Ragusa, Dalmatia, mathematician born in 1566.
1608 (Julian date) Blessed George Gervase. Go
to 21 April Gregorian. —(080403) 1525 Davide Bigordi
Ghirlandaio, Florentine painter and mosaicist born on 14 March
1452.  more
with link to an image.1079
Saint Stanislaus of Kraków, born on 26 June 1030 in Szczepanów,
Poland, patron saint of Poland, the first Pole to be canonized (in 1253,
by Pope Innocent
IV [–07 Dec 1254]). Of noble birth, Stanislaus studied at Gniezno
in Poland., and probably at Paris. While serving as canon and preacher at
Kraków, he was elected, after Pope Alexander
II [–21 Apr 1075] nominated him, bishop of Kraków in 1072. During
that time Poland was in a state of political unrest, with active opposition
to King Boleslaw II the Bold [1039 – 22 Mar 1081]. Stanislaus joined
the opposition under the leadership of Wladyslaw Herman [1043 – 04
Jun 1102], the king's brother, and excommunicated Boleslaw. In 1079 Stanislaus
is accused of treason. The royal court finds him guilty and sentences him
to dismemberment. The king's knights cannot bring themselves to carry out
the sentence. Boleslaw II storms into Kraków's Church of Saint Michael,
outside the city gates, where Stanislaus is saying mass. Boleslaw II stabs
the bishop with his own sword, as the horrified congregation looks on. Stanislaus
slumps in pain [image >] and dies. This same day King Boleslaw
is forced to flee to Hungary. Wladyslaw Herman becomes king. These events
have remained a matter of controversy between those Polish historians who
believe Stanislaus was part of a Bohemian-German plot designed to remove
Boleslaw and replace him with Wladyslaw, and those who describe the execution
as a contemptible act of revenge against a saintly bishop who had excommunicated
a cruel, licentious king. In any case, miracles and legends spread the cult
of the martyred bishop to Lithuania, Belorussia, and Ukraine, and Stanislaus
became the patron saint of his native Poland. 0678 Pope
Donus. He had been consecrated Pope on 02 November 676, to
succeed Adeodatus II, after an interval of 4 months and 17 days.

2002 Condor, first hatched
in the wild in 18 years. ^top^
For the first time in 18 years, a condor
egg laid in the wild has hatched in the wild. The egg hatched in a
nest in the rugged back country of California’s Ventura County. The
chick’s parents were captive-reared at the Los Angeles Zoo and San
Diego Wild Animal Park, then released into the wild at the age of
one by the US Fish and Wildlife Service in 1995. The
young condor would be found dead on 04 October 2002.
Dr. Allen Mee of the Zoological Society of San Diego watched the event.
The female, R8, went into the cave at around midday. The male, W0,
was sitting on the already cracked egg. She stared at her mate for
a while, waiting for him to leave, but he just stared back. Then she
nudged him off the egg, pushing her head under his tail. In attempting
to incubate the egg, she inadvertently crushed the egg shell, exposing
the chick. For several hours she was restless and appeared confused,
trying to incubate both the chick and the egg pieces. Eventually she
settled down on the new born chick.
After the hatching W0 and R8 would turn out to be excellent parents
feeding and caring for the chick in text-book fashion.
Dr Mee found the nest site on 18 February 2002 after several weeks
of monitoring a pair of condors as he and US Fish and Wildlife biologists
investigated nest caves in a remote canyon.
For the past two months the parents have shared in the incubation
duties, spending up to a week on the egg at one time.
In May 2001, these parents were part of a condor trio  one male
and two females  that successfully hatched a Los Angeles Zoo
egg in the wild. Unfortunately, that chick died within a few days.
There are 63 condors now living
in the wild in California and Arizona, 18 in field pens ready for
release and 104 in captivity at the Los Angeles Zoo, San Diego Wild
Animal Park and the Peregrine Fund’s World Center for Birds of Prey
in Boise, Idaho. The goal of
the California Condor Recovery Plan is to establish two geographically
separate populations, one in California and the other in Arizona,
each with 150 birds and at least 15 breeding pairs.
The largest birds in North America, condors are scavengers that have
soared over mountainous areas of California since prehistoric times,
but their numbers plummeted in the 20th Century. Condor numbers declined
in part due to loss of habitat and food and from shooting, lead poisoning
and toxic substances used to poison predators.
Condors were listed as an endangered species in 1967, under a US law
that pre-dated the existing Endangered Species Act. In 1982, the condor
population reached its lowest level of 22 birds, prompting USFAW Service
biologists to start collecting chicks and eggs for a captive breeding
program. By late 1984, only 15 condors remained in the wild. After
seven condors died in rapid succession, it was decided to bring the
remaining birds in from the wild for the captive breeding program.
In 1992, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service began releasing California condor back into the wild. The
focus of the condor recovery effort is the release of captive reared
condors to the wild to ultimately establish self-sustaining populations.
To date, 218 condor chicks have been raised in captive propagation
facilities. An adult California
condor (Gymnogyps californianus) weighs 7 to 11 kg, has a wingspan
of up 3 meters, and a body length of 117 to 140 cm. They don't sing,
but may grunt or wheeze. There is no sexual dimorphism (observable
difference in size or appearance) between males and females. California
condors have a white or mottled triangle under the wing, no feathers
on the head, and the head color is black in juveniles or orange/pink
in adults, not dark red as in Turkey Vultures. California
condors usually choose as a nest site a cave in a cliff or a crevice
among boulders on a steep slope.
After 11 April, in 2002, two more young were produced in the wild
in California and two eggs were laid in Arizona. These are the first
successful hatches in the wild since the early 1980s.
Condors reach sexual maturity and attain adult plumage and coloration
by 5 or 6 years of age and breeding is likely between 6 and 8 years
of age. When mature, a condor will lay one egg (average incubation
period for a condor egg is 56 days) every other year during a successful
nesting cycle. The species provides extensive parental care to very
few young. Condors are strict
scavengers. Unlike Turkey Vultures, condors do not have an exceptional
sense of smell. They instead find their food visually, often by investigating
the activity of ravens, coyotes, eagles, and other scavengers. Without
the guidance of their parents, young inexperienced juvenile condors
may also investigate the activity of humans. As young condors learn
and mature this human directed curiosity diminishes. In the past the
food of condors was carcasses of bison, elk, or deer in inland areas;
seals and beached whales along coasts. With fluctuating populations
of wild game, the condor has adapted to utilizing carcasses of domestic
animals too. In the historical
past there were California condors from British Columbia south to
northern Baja California and in other parts of what is now the southwestern
United States. The California condor can travel 250 km a day in search
of food. On 01 September 2002,
there were 205 California Condors in the world  73 of them in
the wild in California and Arizona. In 1982, there were 22 California
Condors in the world. Nestlings
fledge (leave nest) full grown at six months of age, however when
there were large populations of condors, they may have been dependent
on their parents for more that a year. Reintroduced condors are released
on their own and must learn to forage and survive with the now existing
free-flying population. The
numbers of California condors dropped dramatically until 1982, because
of an unsustainable mortality rate in the wild and a naturally low
reproductive rate. Predation, shootings, poisoning, lead poisoning,
and collisions with power lines are some of the major threats.
The California Condor, hawks, eagles,
vultures, and owls are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty and
the Endangered Species Act. Under these acts it is illegal to pursue,
hunt take, capture, or kill a bird of prey.

1953 Andrew
John Wiles, English mathematician who, after 8 years of single-minded
efforts, succeeding in September 1994 in proving
Fermat's Last
Theorem, about which Wiles had been concerned ever since he was 10.
Pierre
de Fermat [17 Aug 1601 – 12 Jan 1665] in 1637 had written in the
margin of a book (Arithmetica by Diophantus
[200-284], on the page where it had Quaestio VIII: Propositum: quadratum
dividere in duos quadratos) that he had proved that it is impossible to
find whole numbers that satisfy the equation x^n + y^n = z^n
if n > 2, but that the margin did not have enough space for writing the
proof. “... generaliter nullam in infinitum ultra quadratum potestatem
in duos eiusdem numinis fas est dividere, cuius rei demonstrationem mirabilem
fere detexi. Hanc marginis exiguitas non caperet.” Ever
since mathematicians
had tried to construct a proof, but without success. Wiles's proof is
150 pages long and uses mathematics that did not exist in Fermat's time,
so that it is very likely that Fermat was mistaken about the validity of
his proof.

^1941 Office of Price Administration
(OPA) is created.
During the early 1940s, President Franklin Roosevelt set about readying
the nation for its entrance into World War II. Along with converting
US industry to the cause of wartime production, Roosevelt also moved
to safeguard the nation's economy. Towards this end, Roosevelt issued
an executive order on 11 April 1941, that created the Office
of Price Administration (OPA). Charged with waging war against inflation,
the OPA imposed price caps on a vast array of goods and attempted
to keep a tight fist on key items with low inventories. Though under
other circumstances such measures might have stirred controversy,
Americans generally complied with the OPA. However, the agency could
not quell the spread of black markets for certain items, including
meat, gas and cigarettes. Following the close of the war, the OPA
also proved impotent against the attacks of corporate leaders and
business-friendly legislators who were itching to kill off price controls.
Thus, in 1946, the OPA began curtailing its efforts and slashing its
then sizable staff of 73'000 paid employees and 200'000 volunteers.
Coupled with the demise of price controls, the closing of the OPA
led to a heady spate of inflation. 1930 Nicholas Brady, National Treasurer
Today marks the birthday of Nicholas Brady, a stalwart figure in the
banking industry who eventually became the 68th secretary of the Treasury.
Born in New York City in 1930, Brady worked in banking for thirty-four
years, serving a stint as the chairman of Dillon, Read & Company.
He also worked as a director for a host of companies, including the
NCR Corporation and H.J. Heinz. By the early 1980s, Brady had switched
to the public sector, briefly holding a seat in the US Senate, and
serving in various posts in the Reagan administration. Brady was tapped
for the spot atop the Treasury in the fall of 1988.

1934 Mark Strand, US poet/editor/translator (Another Republic)
1914 Pygmalion, by George Bernard Shaw,
premieres. 1908 Brian
Kuttner, English mathematician who died on 02 January 1992.
He worked on Fourier series, strong summability, Riesz means, Nörland
methods, and Tauberian theory. 1907 Henry
Scheffé, US mathematician who died on 05 July 1977.
He worked in several different areas of Statistics, including linear models,
analysis of variance and nonparametrics. Author of The Analysis of Variance
(1959).1904 Philip
Hall, English mathematician who died on 30 December 1982. The
growth of group
theory to be one of the major mathematical topics of the 20th Century
was largely due to him. 1901 Glenway Wescott, US
writer (Apartment in Athens) 1894 Paul
Finsler, German mathematician who died on 29 April 1970. His
doctoral dissertation Curves and surfaces in general spaces introduced
Finsler spaces, a generalisation of Riemannian spaces where the length function
is defined differently and Minkowski's
geometry holds locally. But Finsler's main work was in set theory, though
he also worked on differential geometry, number theory, probability theory,
and the foundations of mathematics. Author of On the foundations of
set theory (part I: 1926, part II: 1965)1893 Dean G.
Acheson statesman/US Secretary of State (1949-1953)1893
John Northcote Nash, British painter, wood-engraver,
and illustrator, who died on 23 Sep 1977. MORE
ON NASH AT ART 4 APRIL with
links to images.1880 Daniel Garber, US Impressionist
painter who died in 1958.  links
to images.1862 Charles Evans Hughes, jurist and
statesman who served as an associate justice of the US Supreme Court (1910–1916),
US secretary of state (1921–25), and 11th chief justice of the United States
(1930–1941). As chief justice he led the Supreme Court through the great
controversy arising over President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal social
legislation. Hughes died on 27 August 1948.1834 Marcus Dods,
Scottish clergyman and biblical scholar. His published works in New Testament
studies helped popularize modern biblical scholarship in Great Britain.

^1794Edward
Everett, Massachusetts US statesman and orator
who died on 15 January 1865. He is mainly remembered for delivering
the 2-hour speech immediately preceding the 2-minute Gettysburg
Address (19 Nov 1863) of Abraham Lincoln [12 Feb 1809 –
15 Apr 1865] at the ceremony dedicating
the Gettysburg National Cemetery in Pennsylvania during the US
Civil War (12 Apr 1861 –
02
Jun 1865). He was the uncle of Edward Everett Hale [03
Apr 1822 – 10 June 1909].
By 1820 Everett had established a formidable reputation as a lecturer
and orator, based on careful preparation, an extraordinary memory,
and brilliance of style and delivery. He served in the US House of
Representatives (1825–1835), as governor of Massachusetts (1835–1839),
and as US minister to England (1841–1845). With his election
as president of Harvard in 1846, he withdrew from politics for several
years, returning in 1852 as Secretary of State during the last four
months of the presidency of Millard Fillmore [07 Jan 1800 –
08 Mar 1874]. In 1853 Everett entered the US Senate, but his generally
conciliatory stand on the issue of slavery aroused the ire of his
abolitionist constituents, and he resigned the following year.
In 1860 Everett was the unsuccessful
vice presidential candidate of the Constitutional Union Party (the
remnants of the Whigs), which sought to bridge sectional differences
by stressing common devotion to the Union and the Constitution, and
whose presidential candidate was John Bell. They were defeated by
Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin [27 Aug 1809 – 04 Jul 1891]
of the anti-slavery Republican
Party (which was founded on 28 February 1854). Everett's desire
for compromise ended at the outbreak of the Civil War, throughout
which he traveled and spoke in support of the Union cause. In
early July 1863, Pennsylvania governor Andrew Curtin had charged Wills,
a successful Gettysburg citizen and judge, with cleaning up the aftermath
of the battle of Gettysburg (01 to 03 Jul 1863). Wills quickly acquired
seventeen acres for the national cemetery and had the Germantown landscape
architect, William Saunders, draw up a plan. Burial began not long
after. On 23 September 1863, Wills invited the Everett to give an
oration at the dedication ceremony planned for 23 October 1863. Everett
accepted, but, needing more time to prepare, persuaded Wills to postpone
the ceremony to 19 November. Everett's 13'609-word
speech began: “Standing
beneath this serene sky, overlooking these broad fields now reposing
from the labors of the waning year, the mighty Alleghenies dimly towering
before us, the graves of our brethren beneath our feet, it is with
hesitation that I raise my poor voice to break the eloquent silence
of God and Nature. But the duty to which you have called me must be
perfomed; grant me, I pray you, your indulgence and your sympathy.
...” And ended two hours
later with:“... But
they, I am sure, will join us in saying, as we bid farewell to the
dust of these martyr-heroes, that wheresoever throughout the civilized
world the accounts of this great warfare are read, and down to the
latest period of recorded time, in the glorious annals of our common
country, there will be no brighter page than that which relates The
Battles of Gettysburg.”

1770 George Canning, brilliant English Tory statesman and
orator, but distrusted for his opportunism and inconsistency. As Foreign
Secretary he clashed with Castlereagh over the conduct of war with France,
and fought a duel with him in 1809. He supported the Greeks in their struggle
against Turkish rule and recognised the independence of the rebellious Spanish
American colonies (and so 'called the New World into existence to redress
the balance of the Old'). He became Prime Minister in 1827, but died within
four months.1767 Jean-Baptiste Isabey, French painter,
draftsman, and printmaker, who died on 18 April 1855. MORE
ON ISABEY AT ART 4 APRIL
with links to images.1760 Louis Silvestre, French
artist born on 23 June 1675.1749 Adelaïde Labille~Guiard,
French Neoclassical
painter who died on 24 April 1803, specialized in Portraits.
MORE
ON LABILLE~GUIARD AT ART 4 APRIL
with links to images.

English religious poet, best
known for A Song to David (1763), in praise of the author
of the Psalms, notable for flashes of childlike penetration and vivid
imagination. In some respects his work anticipated that of William
Blake and John Clare. He died on 21 May 1771 in a debtor's prison.

Two excerpts
from Smart's poetry: first from Jubilate Agno, second from
A Song to David:

For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.
For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships
in his way.
For this is done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant
quickness.
For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God
upon his prayer.
For he rolls upon prank to work it in.
For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself.
For this he performs in ten degrees.
For first he looks upon his forepaws to see if they are clean.
For secondly he kicks up behind to clear away there.
For thirdly he works it upon stretch with the forepaws extended.
For fourthly he sharpens his paws by wood.
For fifthly he washes himself.
For sixthly he rolls upon wash.
For seventhly he fleas himself, that he may not be interrupted upon
the beat.
For eighthly he rubs himself against a post.
For ninthly he looks up for his instructions.
For tenthly he goes in quest of food.
For having consider'd God and himself he will consider his neighbour.
For if he meets another cat he will kiss her in kindness.
For when he takes his prey he plays with it to give it a chance.
For one mouse in seven escapes by his dallying.
For when his day's work is done his business more properly begins.
For he keeps the Lord's watch in the night against the adversary.
For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and
glaring eyes.
For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the
life.
For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him.
For he is of the tribe of Tiger.
For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger.
For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness
he suppresses.
For he will not do destruction, if he is well-fed, neither will he
spit without provocation.
For he purrs in thankfulness, when God tells him he's a good Cat.
For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.
For every house is incomplete without him and a blessing is lacking
in the spirit.
For the Lord commanded Moses concerning the cats at the departure
of the Children of Israel from Egypt.
For every family had one cat at least in the bag.
For he is the cleanest in the use of his forepaws of any quadruped.

For the dexterity of his defence is an
instance of the love of God to him exceedingly.
For he is the quickest to his mark of any creature.
For he is tenacious of his point.
For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery.
For he knows that God is his Saviour.
For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest.
For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion.
For he is of the Lord's poor and so indeed is he called by benevolence
perpetually  Poor Jeoffry! poor Jeoffry! the rat has bit thy
throat.
For I bless the name of the Lord Jesus that Jeoffry is better.
For the divine spirit comes about his body to sustain it in complete
cat.
For his tongue is exceeding pure so that it has in purity what it
wants in music.
For he is docile and can learn certain things.
For he can set up with gravity which is patience upon approbation.
For he can fetch and carry, which is patience in employment.
For he can jump over a stick which is patience upon proof positive.
For he can spraggle upon waggle at the word of command.
For he can jump from an eminence into his master's bosom.
For he can catch the cork and toss it again.
For he is hated by the hypocrite and miser.
For the former is afraid of detection.
For the latter refuses the charge.
For he camels his back to bear the first notion of business.
For he is good to think on, if a man would express himself neatly.
For he made a great figure in Egypt for his signal services.
For he killed the Ichneumon-rat very pernicious by land.
For his ears are so acute that they sting again.
For from this proceeds the passing quickness of his attention.
For by stroking of him I have found out electricity.
For I perceived God's light about him both wax and fire.
For the Electrical fire is the spiritual substance, which God sends
from heaven to sustain the bodies both of man and beast.
For God has blessed him in the variety of his movements.
For, tho he cannot fly, he is an excellent clamberer.
For his motions upon the face of the earth are more than any other
quadruped.
For he can tread to all the measures upon the music.
For he can swim for life.
For he can creep.

Sweet is the dew
that falls betimes, And drops upon the leafy
limes; Sweet Hermon's fragrant air:
Sweet is the lily's silver bell, And sweet the
wakeful tapers smell That watch for early
pray'r.

Sweet the young nurse with love
intense, Which smiles o'er sleeping innocence;
Sweet when the lost arrive: Sweet
the musician's ardour beats, While his vague mind's in
quest of sweets, The choicest flow'rs to
hive.

Sweeter in all the strains of love,
The language of thy turtle dove,
Pair'd to thy swelling chord; Sweeter with ev'ry grace
endu'd, The glory of thy gratitude,
Respir'd unto the Lord.

Strong is
the horse upon his speed; Strong in pursuit the rapid
glede, Which makes at once his game:
Strong the tall ostrich on the ground; Strong
thro' the turbulent profound Shoots xiphias
to his aim.

Strong is the lion  like
a coal His eye-ball  like a bastion's mole
His chest against the foes: Strong,
the gier-eagle on his sail, Strong against tide, th'
enormous whale Emerges as he goes.

But stronger still, in earth
and air, And in the sea, the man of pray'r;
And far beneath the tide; And in the seat
to faith assign'd, Where ask is have, where seek is find,
Where knock is open wide.

Beauteous
the fleet before the gale; Beauteous the multitudes in
mail, Rank'd arms and crested heads:
Beauteous the garden's umbrage mild, Walk, water,
meditated wild, And all the bloomy beds.

Beauteous the moon full on the lawn;
And beauteous, when the veil's withdrawn,
The virgin to her spouse: Beauteous the temple deck'd
and fill'd, When to the heav'n of heav'ns they build
Their heart-directed vows.

Beauteous, yea beauteous more than these, The
shepherd king upon his knees, For his momentous
trust; With wish of infinite conceit, For
man, beast, mute, the small and great,
And prostrate dust to dust.

Precious the
bounteous widow's mite; And precious, for extreme delight,
The largess from the churl: Precious
the ruby's blushing blaze, And alba's blest imperial
rays, And pure cerulean pearl.

Precious the penitential
tear; And precious is the sigh sincere,
Acceptable to God: And precious are the
winning flow'rs, In gladsome Israel's feast of bow'rs,
Bound on the hallow'd sod.

More precious that diviner part Of David, ev'n
the Lord's own heart, Great, beautiful,
and new: In all things where it was intent,
In all extremes, in each event, Proof 
answ'ring true to true.

Glorious the northern lights a-stream;
Glorious the song, when God's the theme;
Glorious the thunder's roar: Glorious hosanna
from the den; Glorious the catholic amen;
Glorious the martyr's gore:

Glorious  more glorious is the crown Of Him that
brought salvation down By meekness, call'd
thy Son; Thou that stupendous truth believ'd,
And now the matchless deed's achiev'd,
Determin'd, dar'd, and done.

Thoughts for the day:
Fear is the tax that conscience pays to guilt.
“Justice delayed is justice denied; but justice hurried is justice horrid.”
“We think in generalities, but we live in detail.” 
Alfred North Whitehead, British philosopher [15 Feb 1861 – 30 Dec 1947].